Welcome to SWA-PAS L2 Data User Guide’s documentation!

Note

This guide is under an active development.

Tip

IRAP SWA-PAS website is available at http://solarorbiter.irap.omp.eu/.

Introduction

Proton Alpha Sensor (PAS) is an instrument for measuring protons (H+) and alphas (He++) in the solar wind. PAS is a part of Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA) suite onboard Solar Orbiter. PAS measures ion velocity distribution functions (VDFs) in 3D that consists of energy, elevation, and azimuth.

See also

Description of SWA-PAS https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201937259

Document scope

This document contains a short description of the Solar Orbiter SWA-PAS sensor and the measurement implementation, a short description of the L2 data and data frames, and a description of how to interpret the velocity distribution function (VDF), and the known data caveats.

Acronyms

Abbreviations	Description
SWA	Solar Wind Analyzer
PAS	Proton Alpha Sensor
SRF	Spacecraft Reference Frame
RTN	Radial Tangential Normal Frame
VDF	Velocity Distribution Function

Contents:

• PAS measurements
  • Design
  • Resolution and coverage
  • Reduced set and coverage for burst mode
  • Different settings for normal mode and burst mode
• PAS frames and samplings
  • Frames and bins location
  • PAS sampling organization
• PAS L2 Data Products
  • 3D velocity distribution function data
  • 1D Differential Energy Flux
  • PAS Ground Moments
• Caveats
• Tutorial
  • Examples of how to read in a CDF file using Python
• Changelog

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page